S-300PMU2/ SA-20
radar & launchers
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Many of these capabilities also work together when facing top-end anti-aircraft systems on the ground.
Russian radar and missile systems like the SA-20 and S-400 are extending their ranges to hundreds of kilometers, and their missile performance makes it extremely dangerous for non-stealth aircraft to challenge that perimeter. That response range will make them dangerous even to stealthy aircraft, as their VHF radars improve. Fortunately, their positions are more fixed than aerial opponents. A plane’s all-aspect stealth helps shorten their detection range from any angle, which can create gaps in coverage. A hyperspectral suite of embedded sensors helps the aircraft map and exploit those gaps in real time, as sensor fusion displays the known safe and danger zones. Supercruise reduces detection times further, and shortens any time inadvertently spent in a danger zone, which hopefully allows the Raptor to get close enough to launch its own weapons first. An AN/APG-77 radar with future software upgrades may even be able to provide final-stage jamming of enemy radars.
The F-35 lacks all-aspect stealth, offering less from the side and even less from the rear. That has caused a number of observers to question its survivability, since the anti-aircraft systems it was designed to beat have improved a great deal since its design as a “good enough” stealth fighter was frozen. The F-35 also lacks supercruise, which enhances its vulnerability by keeping it in the target zone longer. In its favor, it has superior embedded sensors and sensor fusion, and will carry a wider range of weapons internally, including powered strike missiles. It will also be built for several nations, in numbers that make investments in new weapons and upgrades more likely. The question is whether its first 2 fundamental limitations in stealth and supercruise end up making its advantages irrelevant, especially as enemy systems and aircraft continue to improve. If so, the F-22A fleet will be expected to take up that slack.
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